How to gamify your crowdfunding campaign like a Boss

posted Jun 7, 2014, 4:15 AM by Siamak Ebarhimi

What does Gamification mean?

Gamification is the use of game thinking and game
mechanics to engage users in solving problems. Gamification is used in
applications and processes to improve user engagement, return on
investment, data quality, timeliness, and learning- Wikipedia

and our definition of crowdfunding:

Crowdfunding (alternately crowd financing, equity
crowdfunding, crowd-sourced fundraising) is the collective effort of
individuals who network and pool their money to support efforts
initiated by other people or organizations. – Power of Crowdfunding

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So when we apply the definition of gamification to crowdfunding,
we get more ways to engage audiences, contributors, and team members
into solving our funding problem. Sounds pretty good to me. In fact, at
the bottom of this post I’m going to show you 10 actionable ways to apply these concepts to your own campaign.

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Why do you want to Gamify your own campaign?

“Gamification can potentially be applied to any industry and
almost anything to create fun and engaging experiences, converting users
into players.” - Gamification.org

“Gamification is the process of using game thinking and game dynamics to engage audiences and solve problems.” – Gabe Zichermann

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When supporting another crowdfunding project, backers have a natural desire to want to share their good deed. Gamification
can accelerate that desire to share and accelerate some other key
factors that were not present before. Competition, achievement, and
special treatment are only 3 of the powerful elements that can drive us
as supporters (and creators) to spread the word about how awesome they are.
Running a campaign without any elements of gamification is like
shouting at people to pay attention to your thing. The marketing world
can tell you that interruption marketing has been getting crushed since
before 2001, see Permission Marketing for extra credit on that one.crowdfunding marketing

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You want to see some examples? I thought you would never ask:

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Projects with gamification, and using “gamification techniques” to explode their campaign financing.

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Projects that are not games, but use the “gamification methods” in their rewards:

I only highlighted a few of the elements that helped these
campaigns expand their reach, I’ll challenge you to explore these
campaigns a bit further and see how many different methods of
gamification you can spot. crowdfunding advertising

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How to do it?

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Recently I watch as my 8 yr. old decided that his games were not
cutting it and that it was time to create his own. Now I know what you
are thinking, kid’s make up games all the time, so what? Well that’s
what I originally thought until he started making it. I watched as it
took him over an hour (as a focused hour for an 8 yr old is about 5hrs
after conversion) to tape on a certain set of numbers to the front of
his bowling pins in order to form a number selection for his bingo game.
Simple in design, he then crafted the rules to say that the Blue Pins
are added to the other Blue Pins that are knocked over during a players
turn, and the Yellow Pins are subtracted from the Total. After handing
me my Bingo card to start play, I started dissecting the numbers.
Mathematically it was impossible for me to get a bingo, and 3x as likely
for him to get one during play, hmmmm……

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Key Takeaway: at any early age we look for ways to give ourselves a head-start, a leg up on the competition, and an unfair advantage.

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Apply some of these techniques to give yourself that advantage that everyone else is looking for.indiegogo marketing

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Gamify like a Boss

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1. The Leader Board. (competition and status) Give ambassadors a unique bit.ly link to track the traffic they send, create a leader board and reward the winner Take a look at what Pat Flynn does on his Niche Site duels, and use my leaderboarded template here.

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2. 1/2 Levels
-(hidden surprises) unlock .5 levels. These are great for those reward
tiers that did not make the cut the first time around. Give people a
surprise, under promise and over deliver. The Kingdom of Death unlocked
14 throughout their campaign.

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3. First-in Discount. (Special
feelings) Early bird special for low qty. This will drive the initial
wave (and get Kicikstarters attention) while creating a sence of urgency
toward backing your campaign.

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4. Random Upgrade-
(Create some Jealousy/competition) Free level upgrade to random person
who shares on social media on day 5, 10, 15, or whenever you feel like
having a reason to update all your backers.

7. Upsize ME. (Delight your customers) A random
backer will receive double their rewards, or get bumped up to the next
level. They might just feel the need to share this with their circles.

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8. Super Ambassador – Like the Leader board, some
ambassadors would like to remain behind the scenes and just help out
anomously. Allow them to help while remaining undisclosed, but update
you campaign backers with “Super Ambassador #2″ just got this special
little thing for doing some specific call-to-action, ie sharing on
facebook, twitter, and pinterest.

10. Thunderclap- (Viral) Use Thunderclap.it
to create a initial wave of attention to your message, and surprise the
loudest “clap” with something cool, something that they are going to
want to talk about.